Iran International
Iran’s Judiciary has issued a directive to courts to act “decisively” and issue harsh sentences to many of those arrested during the ongoing anti-regime protests.
The general Prosecutor’s office headed by a notorious hard-liner cleric; Mohammad Jafar Montazeri issued the directive while thousands have been arrested since September 16 when the first protests began in Iran. At least 3,000 are in detention according to some estimates, but the true number may never be disclosed.
In the previous round of antigovernment protests in November 2019, around 10,000 people were arrested and many faced summary trials without due process of law, without their own lawyers and behind closed doors.
Montazeri’s directive to courts in of itself is an oxymoron, since he is the prosecutor, not chief justice or minister of justice. Iran’s legal system is based on a convoluted and improvised interpretation of Islamic Sharia, where there is no clear distinction between the prosecution and courts. The latter are controlled by the Judiciary, an extensive bureaucracy which also arrests people and directs prosecutors.
The Judiciary in turn is under the direct control of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who has ruled the country for the past 33 years. Judges and prosecutors are all appointed by the chief of Judiciary, an official handpicked by Khamenei.
Montazaeri in his directive offers some leniency toward those whose participation in the protests cannot be evidenced by prosecutors and courts, and who have no prior record, including activism on social media. Even this token measure of leniency can be meaningless since prosecutors routinely claim to have evidence and judges rarely dispute them.
But when it comes to those that the regime considers protesters, Montazeri’s directive is harsh.
“Those who have killed or wounded security agents, or destroyed public and private property, those who have attacked military and police centers, those with a record of taking part in previous unrest, thugs and criminals who have encouraged rioters, and foreigners who have been involved in protests should be held in prison until the court convenes and maximum punishment should be requested for them if there is evidence about what they did.”
In one paragraph the directive clusters together a wide range of real crimes with expressions of political dissent and demands maximum punishment.
Clashes have taken place between protesters and security forces, who have so far killed dozens of people. Some police and anti-riot troops have been wounded or even killed and this can be easily considered a crime. But the judicial system will use these charges against any protester it wants, with no recourse to a fair trial or appeal.
The directive also allows prosecutors to hold any person indefinitely and past instances show that torture and pressure will be freely used to extract self-incriminating confessions.
The Islamic Republic rarely issues permit for rallies, except to its own supporters who do not need a permission anyway. Therefore, all antigovernment protests can be deemed illegal, and protesters can be confronted by security forces and plainclothes Basij militia armed with clubs, knives and guns.
Often, protesters have no other choice but to defend themselves against the police and Basij members who come to disperse and stop rallies.
Montazeri’s directive is also aimed at intimidating a new generation of protesters who have not been cowed after more than ten days of daily confrontations with security forces.
But the tightly controlled broadcaster always juxtaposes the reformists with staunch hard-liners who offer counterarguments to the reformists' shy statements about why the system needs to open up to survive.
Even some of the reformists who have taken part in the debates on the Iranian state TV, have said in interviews with relatively independent media outlets in Iran that the state TV's openness is questionable.
Sadeq Zibacalam a usual suspect on Iranian media and foreign-based televisions to comment on almost everything during the past 30 years, has said in an interview with Didban Iran website that "state TV officials' behavior is authoritarian. Like all authoritarian regimes, the state TV also never acknowledges that there might be flaws and weaknesses in the system."
He added that "the grudge and hatred that has been accumulated in the Iranian society over the years is [partly] due to ignoring these weaknesses." He added that the state TV which operates under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei "has never had a realistic approach to ongoing developments during the past 43 years."
Accordiong to Didban Iran, many observers have been recently criticizing the state TV “which is no longer the point of reference for news and information for the people of Iran." In fact, government media has long ceased to be credible and instead people rely on Persian-speaking broadcasters, such as Iran International and Manoto TV for news and views.
"Just like the government, the state TV attributes the protests to US conspiracies and the actions of Zionists, monarchists and rioters," said Zibakalam, adding that the state TV is part of the Iranian government. It is no surprise as the chairman of the television, Payman Jebelli has reiterated time and again that it is the government's not the people's media. He further added that the state TV does not have any plan to help the regime get out of the current crisis.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a cleric who was former President Mohammad Khatami's chief of staff in late 1990s and early 2000s, said in an interview with Didban Iran that "the state TV's new approach of openness is temporary." He added that some ruling hard-liners say that putting one step back from their uncompromising positions might lead to a domino-like collapse of the system.
Abtahai, who was the head of the Iranian radio in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said, "I believe the open debates that are currently taking place on the state TV might not continue."
Some in the Iranian government believe that hard-liners should not put even one step back from their positions as a result of the protests that followed Mahsa Amini's death in custody, Abtahi argued. This school of thought does not tolerate dialogue, he added. "The other school of thought is reformism. Those who believe in this maintain thatwrong approaches could be corrected in a step-by-step approach," he said. However, he added that social pressure can force hard-liner officials to make compromises about some of their "principles".
However, critics of reformists say that more than two decades of a step-by-step approach has made matters worse and hard-liners more dominant in the government.
Two days after comedian Mehran Modiri belatedly expressed support for the protests, the state TV announced that it has cancelled his talk show, in a sign of intolerance.